Potential Atlanta NHL Expansion Team Thread

[aqib]

The NHL would be very, very wise to avoid a large group - especially if that group has other sports interests (eg, they would want a sizable voice). Atlanta would 100% still have the Thrashers if the NHL had vetoed the ASG in the first place.

Infighting for control is a recipe for disaster. If Krause has deep backers that are A-OK with being silent partners, then he's the guy, regardless of whatever ties to the League Carter has.

At this point ownership groups have to be bigger because the check is getting too big for 1-2 people to write. The Commanders have 15 owners listed. I don't even know how many investors Ryan Smith has.

That being said they do want to have at least one main guy.

 

[dj4aces]

The NHL would be very, very wise to avoid a large group - especially if that group has other sports interests (eg, they would want a sizable voice). Atlanta would 100% still have the Thrashers if the NHL had vetoed the ASG in the first place.

Infighting for control is a recipe for disaster. If Krause has deep backers that are A-OK with being silent partners, then he's the guy, regardless of whatever ties to the League Carter has.

To be fair, ownership "groups" today aren't quite the same as they were when Atlanta Spirit was a thing. Today's groups are largely investors with a face. In the case of Carter, he has those prospective investors lined up, but he'd presumably be the one in full control.

From what I saw of Krause's bid, from reporting early last year, the purchase of a franchise would be funded by the sale of real estate at the mixed-use development. If he has investors as well, I don't recall seeing them discussed. That doesn't mean he doesn't have them, I just can't recall hearing about them.

 

[RoyalAir]

To be fair, ownership "groups" today aren't quite the same as they were when Atlanta Spirit was a thing. Today's groups are largely investors with a face. In the case of Carter, he has those prospective investors lined up, but he'd presumably be the one in full control.

From what I saw of Krause's bid, from reporting early last year, the purchase of a franchise would be funded by the sale of real estate at the mixed-use development. If he has investors as well, I don't recall seeing them discussed. That doesn't mean he doesn't have them, I just can't recall hearing about them.

We're all saying the same thing. Of course groups are necessary, due to the sheer cost. My suggestion is that Carter's group, as announced, looks to have some potential for infighting, due to others having sizable stakes in sports. Carter needs to be The Guy. Krause already is positioned as The Guy.

The NHL needs to ensure that one person be the principal decision maker in every franchise. The legal jockeying that plagued ASG and cost a valuable market cannot be allowed to happen again, regardless of whether Atlanta gets a team again.

Now that Arizona is put to hibernation, the NHL is full of very strong ownership. It must remain so.

 

[aqib]

We're all saying the same thing. Of course groups are necessary, due to the sheer cost. My suggestion is that Carter's group, as announced, looks to have some potential for infighting, due to others having sizable stakes in sports. Carter needs to be The Guy. Krause already is positioned as The Guy.

The NHL needs to ensure that one person be the principal decision maker in every franchise. The legal jockeying that plagued ASG and cost a valuable market cannot be allowed to happen again, regardless of whether Atlanta gets a team again.

Now that Arizona is put to hibernation, the NHL is full of very strong ownership. It must remain so.

On the flip side, the Edmonton Oilers had a 37 person ownership group for several years who owned between 0.6%-9% and it worked out just fine. But in that case Cal Nichols (8% owner) was the main guy. Granted that was a special case where they passed the hat around to just keep the team in town.

The issue with Carter is if he is like 5% owner and has 5 partners who own the other 95% but he is the front owner, that may not last.

 

[FlyguyOX]

Gwinnett is growing quickly but not with demographics that have a natural inclination to hockey. Outside of the far Western reaches of Gwinnett where there is some money with the St Marlo CC, the county as a whole is witnessing a precipitous decline...Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Snellville , Duluth are all unrecognizable. I would be shocked if English is still the predominant language spoken at home amongst the populous there.

Growing up, my trips to Gwinnett- mainly to play hockey were enjoyable because so much infastructure was new- new shopping centers, wide, nicely manicured boulevards, Discover Mills, the Mall of GA etc.

Currently, Gwinnett doesnt even seem like its part of Atlanta, let alone Georiga.

Forsythe County might as well be Winnipeg

Same! I grew up in Gwinnett (Lawrenceville then Hamilton Mill). Discover Mills used to be such a fun place to visit as a kid and that went downhill quickly. Gwinnett is almost unrecognizable now.

 

[FlyguyOX]

The institutional money and influence is in Buckhead, Ansley Park, Virginia Highlands, Brookhaven, ITP Sandy springs and Vinings .

I’ve found majority of people living OTP are transplants with very little tangible connection to Atlanta and it’s culture and history.

If the team doesn’t engage or capture the attention of folks in this area + the majority African American parts of the City of Atlanta the team has no right to have any part of Atlanta in its name.

Would be stolen valor .

As I said, Forsythe County might as well be Winnipeg .

Forsythe County is to Atlanta as Anaheim is to LA

Forsyth seems much more representative of Georgia than ITP does.

 

[FlyguyOX]

No matter how good of a deal you make you always have to deal with the CAVE people. Citizens Against Virtually Everything.

The Field of Schemes Crowd. The first thing they do is restrict their calculations to only the streams they deem relevant and they assume a 100% substitution effect. That's not always true. If the Braves picked some other county, you don't know that people would still spend the same money in Cobb County, they may have spent that money in whatever place the Braves went. Secondly, he acts as if sports subsidies are the death of cities. He has this long post about how the Braves deal is terrible for Cobb County: Cobb County residents are losing $15m a year on Braves stadium, comprehensive study finds
Now even if he is right that its costing $15 million a year, Cobb's budget is $624 million. So 2.4% of the budget goes to this. If people in Cobb County like having the Battery and having the Braves nearby its worth 2.4% of the tax bill having them nearby for quality of life.

I lived walking distance to the Battery at my last home (I'm now in south forsyth). It was worth it to me.

 

[sneakytitz]

From what I saw of Krause's bid, from reporting early last year, the purchase of a franchise would be funded by the sale of real estate at the mixed-use development. If he has investors as well, I don't recall seeing them discussed. That doesn't mean he doesn't have them, I just can't recall hearing about them.

Pretty much everything is being funded through the development, though he likely had to put up an immense amount of collateral (his dealerships, cash, etc.) to secure the construction promissory loans. I don't doubt he paid cash money for the land since he's had it for quite some time and got it for next to nothing, all things considered.

Honestly, this is likely the only cause for concern from the NHL. It is a safe bet that the development, with an NHL team as it's anchor, is going to be a hit, but it is still a bet at the end of the day. While Georgia is home to a lot of multi-billionaires, only 3 have entered the professional sports world in the last 25 years. The NHL is likely going to have to go with Krause's or Anson's bet(s) if they want to come back to Atlanta, sans some billionaire showing up along the way to throw his hat in the ring. But stranger things have happened.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Not sure if I have mentioned it in here, but a parent who has a kid in my child's preschool class was pledge brothers with Krause's kid at Alabama.

He said he knew they had money, but never had the impression they had own an NHL team money

take that for what its worth

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Pretty much everything is being funded through the development, though he likely had to put up an immense amount of collateral (his dealerships, cash, etc.) to secure the construction promissory loans. I don't doubt he paid cash money for the land since he's had it for quite some time and got it for next to nothing, all things considered.

Honestly, this is likely the only cause for concern from the NHL. It is a safe bet that the development, with an NHL team as it's anchor, is going to be a hit, but it is still a bet at the end of the day. While Georgia is home to a lot of multi-billionaires, only 3 have entered the professional sports world in the last 25 years. The NHL is likely going to have to go with Krause's or Anson's bet(s) if they want to come back to Atlanta, sans some billionaire showing up along the way to throw his hat in the ring. But stranger things have happened.

tbh Georgia doesn't have alot of billionaires given the stature of the state, although I think thats because stealth wealth is the name of the game for the actual people with money. With that said, Atlanta has a shit load of Deca Millionaires.

I am kind of plugged into this based on my line of work and compared to other cities, the wealth is much more subdued and conveyed via Country Clubs (PDC, Cherokee, Capital City) and real estate holdings compared to more ostentatious displays of wealth like yachts and private jets.

 

[nhlfan79]

More fresh news coverage today from Channel 2 about the North Point Mall redevelopment and a potential site for a new hockey arena. There's a lot of good information in this story, especially the accompanying video report, which offers more details than the mere text article.

The TL;DR is that the Alpharetta Mayor affirmatively wants the NPM site to host hockey, and that a new arena fits within the already announced overall plan to redevelop the North Point corridor with a grid of walkable trails, etc.. He was conspicuously cagey in refusing to say whether he or anyone else with the city had been to New York to meet with league officials and could not comment on any private meetings he has had about luring a franchise to Alpharetta. Further, the mayor did say that the city has hired a sports consulting firm that specializes in the development of large-scale sports arenas.

This website is unavailable in your location. – WSB-TV Channel 2 - Atlanta

www.wsbtv.com

I'm quite intrigued by all of this coming out now, especially in light of the conventional assumption that Krause and The Gathering effectively already have a franchise sewn up. Why would Alpharetta be taking these conspicuous, public steps, which suggests that Carter's bid is very much alive and well?

 

[sneakytitz]

Well to be fair, immediately after the original Bucci tweet dropped, Jim Gilvin also told the press that they (Alpharetta) had hired an agency to assess the site for an NHL team as well as other "sporting ventures". I think we all assumed NPM when Bucci tweeted that so 11Alive went right to Alpharetta. The only thing different between now and March 2023 is that Gilvin is not answering whether they've met with anyone with the league, in March of 2023 he said they had not.

And then 3 weeks later, the Krause bombshell dropped, which may have been what Bucci was talking about (got his geography wrong?) or whatever Bucci was talking about may have forced Krause to announce the plan prematurely to stay ahead of the news.

Not sure if I have mentioned it in here, but a parent who has a kid in my child's preschool class was pledge brothers with Krause's kid at Alabama.

He said he knew they had money, but never had the impression they had own an NHL team money

take that for what its worth

Maybe then? Dude's portfolio has skyrocketed a lot over the last 10 years. He bought 3 dealerships last year, just bought another one a few weeks ago. 29 dealerships, mostly luxury, generates a SIZABLE amount of profit each year.

EDIT: Dealer.com had him at $900 million in revenue in 2021 when he had 12 dealerships. He's gotta be clearing well over $2 billion a year in sales. He's easily taking in $150-200 million in profit a year.

 

[dj4aces]

I'm quite intrigued by all of this coming out now, especially in light of the conventional assumption that Krause and The Gathering effectively already have a franchise sewn up. Why would Alpharetta be taking these conspicuous, public steps, which suggests that Carter's bid is very much alive and well?

In the 100% Hockey podcast that was posted in another thread (link), Bettman was asked about expansion. He basically stated that no one with interest has approached him to say they "check all the boxes" for him to take their proposal to the Board of Governors. So that conventional assumption about Krause may be a lot more assumption than convention.

The real question is, is it Carter, or is it another group?

 

[SharksFan1992]

Two teams have failed in Atlanta. It's not happening. Plus, the NHL already is at a perfect 32 with balanced conferences.

 

[dj4aces]

Two teams have failed in Atlanta. It's not happening. Plus, the NHL already is at a perfect 32 with balanced conferences.

A lot of the reasons why the "two teams have failed" argument is incredibly flawed were covered very early in this thread's history. However, there are plenty of reasons why the league would return here for a third attempt, which were also covered early on and at various other points, including recently.

Atlanta wouldn't be the first city a major sports league returned to for the third time.

 

[aqib]

A lot of the reasons why the "two teams have failed" argument is incredibly flawed were covered very early in this thread's history. However, there are plenty of reasons why the league would return here for a third attempt, which were also covered early on and at various other points, including recently.

Atlanta wouldn't be the first city a major sports league returned to for the third time.

I've said this before: The Flames were too long ago to be relevant. It's like bringing up the Quebec Bulldogs or Hamilton Tigers.

 

[KevFu]

No matter how good of a deal you make you always have to deal with the CAVE people. Citizens Against Virtually Everything.

The Field of Schemes Crowd. The first thing they do is restrict their calculations to only the streams they deem relevant and they assume a 100% substitution effect. That's not always true.

Ah... during the Islanders arena saga (you know, all 35 years of it), we called them the NIMBYs. Not In My Back Yard.

And I'm right with you on the Field of Schemes crowd. They put numbers into a context that are misleading as hell.

My personal favorite was their coverage of the Mets' stadium, which they claimed cost the taxpayers like $1.4 billion because they were counting "free land just handed to the team" as costing taxpayers hundreds of millions; and $400m in name sponsorship rights as "team profit."

The land for the ballpark was TRADED to the team, because the city GOT BACK the footprint of the OLD STADIUM. The name sponsorship went toward stadium debt, and was pre-negotiated that it would; which is why new Yankee Stadium cost the taxpayers far more money.

On the flip side, the Edmonton Oilers had a 37 person ownership group for several years who owned between 0.6%-9% and it worked out just fine. But in that case Cal Nichols (8% owner) was the main guy. Granted that was a special case where they passed the hat around to just keep the team in town.

The issue with Carter is if he is like 5% owner and has 5 partners who own the other 95% but he is the front owner, that may not last.

IIRC the Oilers situation (a) violated the NHL's ownership rules and the NHL just didn't care, they wanted/needed to save the Oilers and stop the exodus after the Jets/Nordiques and North Stars/Whalers. And (b) had a time limit on it, where the consortium had to find a majority partner by X date.

Or another way of looking at it was that the consortium was never intended/allowed to be a permanent ownership situation, it was just "allowed" to serve as the "matching local bid" that the Oilers' lease had terms for in order to prevent the Oilers from leaving.

 

[KevFu]

Either way would buying the Thrashers and building an arena alongside Truist Park have made sense or is that location not good for an arena? (please note I come in peace with this question because I have only been to Atlanta once so I don't know the area well enough to know if Cobb County is a good spot for NHL).

The state of pro sports and arenas was just different back then. The idea of multiple arenas or privately building your own arena was just so outside the norm. Arenas/stadiums went from "just a bowl to sell seats" to "great venues with revenue streams" in the late 90s, early 2000s.

But the new wave is more like casino construction, where it's the luxury things that bring in the big bucks, and since cities cannot fund that, the owners have realized it's worth it for them to fund it themselves to build it in a way where there's more revenue from the high rollers.

There was a thing on the Golden State Warriors arena, where they said something like (I'm trying to recall from memory, I could be off) but like 40% of the revenue comes from 12% of the tickets.

 

[aqib]

And I'm right with you on the Field of Schemes crowd. They put numbers into a context that are misleading as hell.

The land for the ballpark was TRADED to the team, because the city GOT BACK the footprint of the OLD STADIUM. The name sponsorship went toward stadium debt, and was pre-negotiated that it would; which is why new Yankee Stadium cost the taxpayers far more money.





IIRC the Oilers situation (a) violated the NHL's ownership rules and the NHL just didn't care, they wanted/needed to save the Oilers and stop the exodus after the Jets/Nordiques and North Stars/Whalers. And (b) had a time limit on it, where the consortium had to find a majority partner by X date.

Or another way of looking at it was that the consortium was never intended/allowed to be a permanent ownership situation, it was just "allowed" to serve as the "matching local bid" that the Oilers' lease had terms for in order to prevent the Oilers from leaving.

I've gone back and forth with Neil deMause a few times. There was one case where some minor league soccer team wanted to lease land from a community college in Queens for 20 years for a temporary stadium after which they would dismantle the stadium and return the land. The college wasn't using the land and the deal let the college use the stadium a few days a year. Now there probably aren't a lot of land lease deals or people looking to lease land in Queens for a fixed period of time and then dismantle what they have on site so unlike a sale you don't have comps to determine the market value. Of course this deal was horrible.

Then there was the whole thing about income taxes from players. He keeps saying that if people weren't going to games they would spend money elsewhere and those places would hire more people and they would pay income taxes. So I used the Vikings as an example and how much people spend there and assumed they spent all the money going out to dinner and calculated how many more waiters and chefs would get hired and their taxes (yeah I was bored) and it wasn't even close. Then he said "income taxes by players are barely noticeable in state budgets." Well on the flip side stadium spending is also small in the grand scheme of state spending. Like Ohio is considering giving the Browns $600 million for the stadium, to be paid with bonds over 30 years. The state budget is over $60 billion.

The Oilers had a clause in their bank loan agreement that allowed for a local bid at $70 million (the Houston offer was $85 million) if the team was sold. The bank was owned by the Province of Alberta so they inserted that clause. Yes Bettman did waive rules on ownership percentages to allow it to happen. So credit to him for that. The ownership group explicitly stated they were only committing through 2004 when the CBA was due to expire and they would only stay if their was a cap. They used to refer to it as the "War in 2004", for years leading up to it. Cal Nichols (the point man in the group) said going into the lockout that if there wasn't a cap as part of the CBA they were going to sell the team most likely to a buyer who would move it.

 

[Daximus]

Been on a role designing logos for fun recently so thought I'd throw my idea for Atlanta into the ring. It's not original as I've seen it elsewhere but the Atlanta Firebirds/Phoenix blending the Thrasher/Flames concepts to form a new identity while hearkening back to previous iterations of Atlanta hockey teams. Just a typical firebird but with hockey stick legs and a little Georgia peach at it's heart.

 

[FlyguyOX]

Been on a role designing logos for fun recently so thought I'd throw my idea for Atlanta into the ring. It's not original as I've seen it elsewhere but the Atlanta Firebirds/Phoenix blending the Thrasher/Flames concepts to form a new identity while hearkening back to previous iterations of Atlanta hockey teams. Just a typical firebird but with hockey stick legs and a little Georgia peach at it's heart.

Too busy for apparel, IMO (I'm a South Carolina college sports fan so I know all about that).

I'd also like to see a third Navy color added to the color scheme.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

I like the core concept, but something about the circular center section of the bird looks off, almost like a bird beer gut or something? Maybe needs a simplified retouch that section or put a puck or a shield up there?

And the round logo looks a bit plain, but I think a small tweak would do wonders. Maybe copy or modify the alternating red/grey colored ring design of the city seal and incorporate that into it? Might look sharp as red and black or red and gold instead.

Oh, and looking over designs, it seems like Atlanta likes their bird facing to the left rather than the right.

 

[Daximus]

I like the core concept, but something about the circular center section of the bird looks off, almost like a bird beer gut or something? Maybe needs a simplified retouch that section or put a puck or a shield up there?

And the round logo looks a bit plain, but I think a small tweak would do wonders. Maybe copy or modify the alternating red/grey colored ring design of the city seal and incorporate that into it? Might look sharp as red and black or red and gold instead.

View attachment 1025128

Oh, and looking over designs, it seems like Atlanta likes their bird facing to the left rather than the right.

I tried getting a peach into the center to add some Georgia flare to it. Makes the bird a bit chunky for sure. Maybe I can shrink it a bit. I love the idea of adding the design around the city seal! I'll work on it a bit tonight and see what I can come up with.

 

[Daximus]

Too busy for apparel, IMO (I'm a South Carolina college sports fan so I know all about that).

I'd also like to see a third Navy color added to the color scheme.

I'm thinking of maybe adding gray like in the city seal. We'll see how that turns out.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

The Thrashers Color Palate is elite as is- it doesn’t need to be messed with

Navy, gold, Dark red and white is not really represented in the NHL (Florida kind of but it’s not that similar )

However- I think this color palate would look great on a 3r jersey and would be totally unique to the NHL and it just screams “Georgia”